Resumen (otros idiomas)

This article tries to provide a context for the Spanish ambitious regulatory framework of self-employment in force since 2007. Along with the analysis of its novelty and scope, the article questions the sense of a reform considered paradoxical for two key points. On the one hand, because it involves the regulation of self employment under a speci c employment status with very similar features to the wage labor status. On the other hand, because this reform takes place when self-employment –that has historically occupied a prominent place in Spain– tend to decline. Instead of dissociating self-employment from wage labor, this article invites us to explore the relationship between these two forms of employment, considering self- employment not as the denial of the wage-earning society, but as a witness of his power, and his profound transformation.